Comex GOLD PRICE today rose $3.80 (0.35%) to $1,076.90. The SILVER PRICE lost 22.6 cents (1.6%) to 1385.9c. For the week gold lost 0.47% while silver lost 4.5%.

Gold/Silver Ratio

Today’s silver tumble sent the closing GOLD/SILVER RATIO to 77.704 and nearly to the range’s top. This is a breakout through the downtrend line. When stocks are performing poorly, silver feels puny, too. If stocks do suddenly plunge again, the ratio might rise to 81.

Gold Price

Gold’s symmetrical formation of the last 30 days could very well mark a bottom, and today it closed above its 20 DMA — good. Indicators all point up, but gold has been unable to mount a sustained climb. For good or ill, the dank cloud of the Fed’s raising rates will pass. We’ll see what gold does then.

I don’t like silver’s chart, mostly today. It posted a new low for the move at 1375c, and a new low close at 1385.9c. Can’t build upward steam.

Dow in Gold

Lo, memories of 2008 have seized my mind. Then the US dollar soared while stocks, silver, and gold tanked. However, stocks tanked much, much faster than gold. Look at this chart of the Dow in Gold, recalling that the spread is a fraction, Dow divided by gold, so it SINKS when gold is outperforming the Dow. Even silver outperformed stocks in 2008, but not like gold.

US Dollar Index

But history doesn’t necessarily repeat. The dollar index went rising into August 2008 quite strongly, peaked at the crisis peak in November, then plunged. This time, the dollar index has just broken and nixed a rally. This time around maybe gold might benefit more than the dollar.

Not much joy in Wall Street this week. They’s chickens flying all up and down the street, messin’ up the sidewalks and sidewalkers and looking for a place to roost. Stocks are walking toward August’s open manhole and junk bonds are flying apart. What happened to Santa Claus and where is his rally? Gold and silver have been listless, and silver is turning puny. Scurvy US dollar index resumed it skid, and the white metals are diving.

US Dollar

The scrofulous, scabby US dollar index has spent the last seven trading days trying to prove its rally has been permanently broken. It tried to rise today, but the market slapped it winded. Closed down 38 basis points (0.39%) at 97.55, three basis points beneath its 50 day moving average (97.58), AND within shooting distance of its 200 DMA at 96.80. Crossing that line and staying thereunder will confirm there is no more dollar rally to look forward to.

Euro

The euro climbed 0.47% to $1.0995. It has climbed back through the bottom boundary of the range November kicked it out of and today touched its 200 DMA ($1.1025) but couldn’t close through it. Give that the dollar index is headed down and the euro is 57% of the dollar index, simple mathematics whispers the euro should rise higher. However, always remember that low-life, white trash, egg-sucking-yellow-dog criminal central bankers manipulate currency rates, so a chart pattern may not fulfill its promise.

Japanese Yen

Yen is in the same state as the euro, only better: it has crossed above its 200 DMA. Today it rose 0.51% to 82.67. Ought to rise.

Just remember, a nation without a central bank is like a howler monkey without a cell phone. Or a hog without a waistcoat.

Junk bonds are tanking. When investors are scared, they flee high risk investments like that, looking for safety. HYG junk bond index has avalanched to a new two year low. Yes, that is serious. Pretty fair article on Marketwatch here, http://on.mktw.net/1HZjlef “Why the junk bond selloff is getting very scary.” Note the chart comparing junk bond performance with S&P500 performance last 17 years. View the HYG chart on the right but grab your wastebasket first. Might make you puke. (Thanks, R, for forwarding me that article!)

Ten Year Treasury Yield

Dow Jones

Further flight to safety alert was posted on the 10 year treasury yield today. It fell 4.47% to 2.139%. Remember that bonds RISE when yields fall, so this reflects money fleeing into bonds.

Sellers bashed stocks this week. Dow lost 3.3%, S&P500 3.8%. Today was the worst of a rotten week. S&P500 dove 39.86 (1.94%) to 2,012.37. Dow got up on the diving board and plunged 309.54 (1.76%), landing on its face at 17,265.21. Owch.

S&P 500

Where does that leave them? Here are charts on the right.

Mark, gentle readers, that both indices are nearing the horizontal line through which indices fell in August so ignominiously, as an incautious man reading a newspaper falls down an open manhole. Downside momentum is building with volatility. Both indices have fallen way below their 200 DMAs and other moving averages, so that momentum is sucking them down into a maelstrom. Bad juju, bwana. Hear drums beating in jungle. Bad juju, as the bearers might have said in a 1930s Tarzan movie.

Ponder now: how likely is the Fed to raise interest rates in the face of plunging stocks? Likely, not likely, or likely as the survival of a large roach facing 200 hungry hens?

Dow in gold fell 2.01% today to 16.08 troy ounces. Clearly double topped 27 Nov and 2 Dec and has since cascaded through its 20 DMA and today through the uptrend line from August 2013. No gift of clairvoyance needed to foresee much lower prices here.

Even after silver’s shabby performance this week and today particularly, the Dow in Silver dropped 0.28% to 1,243 troy ounces. Like its sister indicator, it, too, hath fallen below its 20 DMA and peaked back on 2 December. Be patient. It appears stocks have peaked against metals.

Gold:Bank Stock Index

WTIC (a proxy for oil) made another new low today at $35.36. Will it fall to $20? Beats me. Copper is gainsaying oil by rising, up 2.4% today on a chart that looks almost plumb bottomed.

With all this panic in the air, the Gold:Bank Stock Index spread is smokin’, taking off. Remember, this spread shows waxing confidence in the financial system (the big banks) versus gold when it’s falling, and waning confidence in finance and waxing confidence in gold when it rises. Looky, looky here:

Before I forget, I have to travel next week and will be out of town Monday through Thursday, so I won’t be sending any commentaries on those days. God willing, I’ll see y’all again next Friday.

Do NOT use these commentaries to trade futures contracts. I don’t intend them for that or write them with that short term trading outlook. I write them for long-term investors in physical metals. Take them as entertainment, but not as a timing service for futures.

NOR do I recommend investing in gold or silver Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs). Those are NOT physical metal and I fear one day one or another may go up in smoke. Unless you can breathe smoke, stay away. Call me paranoid, but the surviving rabbit is wary of traps.

NOR do I recommend trading futures options or other leveraged paper gold and silver products. These are not for the inexperienced.

NOR do I recommend buying gold and silver on margin or with debt.

What DO I recommend? Physical gold and silver coins and bars in your own hands.